Europe 2012- Day 1: Getting there is half the battle

Wednesday, August 29, 2012.

Waking up around 8:30 AM with slight butterflies in my stomach, mostly getting excited to see Nate after 2 1/2 weeks. I had some last minute packing to do, along with emptying the fridge, garbage and all the little things required when you’re going to be gone for a long time. 

As I was eating breakfast I Skyped with Nate. Mom and Dad arrived at the house around 10:15 AM and they chatted with Nate while I was finishing things up. Finally we had to say goodbye to Nate so I could pack up my computer. Dave and Kristie arrived and I was able to shuffle some things into their bags as mine were not too full, but overweight by a couple pounds. 

After double checking we all had our passports with us we headed for the airport. After arriving I gave Mom and Dad one long hug goodbye and we were on our way. We had to stand in line for about 10 minutes before being able to print our boarding passes. The line to check in bags was getting really long and probably would have taken at least a half hour. Even though the attendant told me that I couldn't check my bag at the curb, I knew that Nathan had done it. I tried and luckily I was able to and saved a ton of time.

The security line was about as long as I’ve ever seen it, but it moved pretty quickly and we were soon walking towards our gate. Since our flight was leaving at 1:25 PM and boarding around 12:45 PM we weren’t sure if they would be serving us lunch or not, so we stopped at Wendy’s for a light lunch. When we got down to our gate we discovered they had overbooked the flight (by as many as 20 people I overheard one person say) and they were looking for people willing to take the flight out the next day. Dave and Kristie actually thought about it, but after asking what the deal was they decided not to do it.

At PDX waiting to board

After the airline attendant at the gate scanned my passport I walked into the hallway to the jetway, near the entrance to the jetway a TSA agent stopped me and asked if I was carrying more the $10,000 on me. “Good heavens NO!” I said, “Why would anyone carry that much cash on them?” He seemed satisfied with my answer and let me on my way . . . I thought that was a little odd.

Shortly after sitting down on the plane a flight attendant came and asked a few questions to the guy in front of me, saying something like “You know that thing you asked me about earlier, it’s okay, everything has been taken care of. Where did you hear about it? Are you European?” To me it sounded like something not so pleasant that might have happened in Amsterdam, this is what I found after arriving and doing some research:

AMSTERDAM, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Amsterdam Schiphol's airport, one of Europe's busiest transport hubs, reopened its runways and terminals on Wednesday afternoon after a World War Two bomb found on the site was removed and reports of a hijacking proved unfounded.

Authorities had closed parts of the airport after the unexploded German bomb was discovered buried underground near Terminal C, which handles flights to most major European destinations.

A handful of European flights were cancelled, while several dozen were delayed on Wednesday morning.

The 500kg explosive, uncovered during construction work, was later removed so it could be disarmed safely, a spokeswoman for the airport said.

A few hours after the discovery of the bomb, the Dutch defense ministry sent two fighter planes to intercept a Vueling passenger plane with about 180 passengers on board.

The plane, which had flown from Malaga in Spain, lost radio contact with air traffic control, prompting fears it had been hijacked.

It landed safely at Schiphol where it was surrounded by security forces on the tarmac until the military police established that the aircraft had not been hijacked.

Schiphol is Europe's fifth busiest airport and handled about 45 million passengers in 2010. It is owned by the Dutch state, the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and French airports operator Aeroports de Paris.

Flights by airline KLM, which is part of Franco-Dutch group Air France KLM and which uses the airport as its main hub, were affected by the runway and terminal closures, Schiphol's website showed.

Schiphol was a military airport during World War Two. It was bombed both by the Germans at the start of the conflict and by Allied forces during the fighting.

The discovery of the bomb occurred a day after explosives experts detonated another World War Two bomb discovered in Munich, the city's fire department said.

The blast from the bomb that was found on Monday blew out windows and set a number of nearby roofs alight.

I guess I’m glad that I didn’t know what had happened.

The flight was pretty good, considering the 10 hours it takes to get from PDX to AMS. I sat by a nice woman from Manchester, England whom I talked with a decent amount, and on my other side was a girl probably a few years younger than me from Paris, France.

Because it was an international flight, it was free to watch as many movies as you want. I couldn’t get the remote to work properly at first though so I started by watching “Mirror Mirror” because it automatically landed on that one. Next I watched “The Lucky One”,which was a good story, but I could have done without the love scenes. Then I started watching “This Means War” but I just wasn’t enjoying it, so I didn’t watch more than about 15 minutes. Lastly I watched “Big Miracle” which is based on a true story that happened in 1988 about freeing some trapped grey whales off Point Barrow, Alaska. I thought it was cool that they used some actual news footage from the real story. Plus with Jana living up in Alakanuk, Alaska I felt like I related to the native towns people more than I would have a few years ago.

The rest of my time on the plane was spent trying to sleep, but my attempts were all unsuccessful. Most of the flight was pretty smooth, but we had about 15 minutes of light turbulence about 2 hours into the flight, and then about 20 minutes before we landed as we were descending through the clouds the turbulence got really bad. Luckily it only lasted 20-30 seconds, but it caused me to hold onto the arm rests and some of the flight attendance fell down as they were trying to get to their seats, and as we landed  something went crashing down in the kitchen area behind me.

Waiting for the train in Amsterdam

We had no issues getting our bags, and we had soon got our train tickets and were waiting for the train to take us down to Eindhoven. The train ride was an hour and a half, and Dave and Kristie were enjoying taking in the surroundings and amazed at how absolutely flat Holland is.

After arriving in Eindhoven we walked the couple blocks to The Pullman, which is a hotel, but they also have apartments. Nate had left a key for me at the front desk, so after getting that I headed up to find our apartment. 

We have a one bedroom, which is smaller the any other apartment we have had, but we have our own laundry room which is nice, as well as an oven, microwave, and stove top (not all the apartments have had all three.) We were all tired and hungry as it was now noon in Holland. We decided to head to McDonalds for a quick little snack before coming back for a nap.

Dave and Kristie got their first experience of trying to deal with people that use a different language. Asking for no mayo on a burger had the cashier confused, so then we clarified no mayonnaise. She understood what we meant but didn’t know how to punch it into the register, so she had to ask her boss, who clarified again what we wanted, and then said “oh  . . no sauce” 

We were going to try only nap for about 2 hours, but that turned into about 4 hours. We didn’t know when Nate would get home, but it ended up being a late night for him, and he didn’t get in till around 7 PM.

We decided to have dinner at the Easy Wok. It’s an Asian fast food place where you pick your meat, sauce, and vegetables then cook it up for you. You can eat it there or get it for “take away” as they call it here. After eating we went to the grocery store so we would have food for breakfast.

The view from our apartment. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church